


Miss Me, Richie?

by trashmovthtoziers



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Arcades, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, It Chapter Two Spoilers??, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sexuality Crisis, Spoilers, Teenage Losers Club (IT), written before it 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-29 22:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashmovthtoziers/pseuds/trashmovthtoziers
Summary: A prediction for a certain scene rumored to be in It Chapter Two.Richie + an arcade.





	Miss Me, Richie?

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING; MULTIPLE USES OF HOMOPHOBIC LANGUAGE
> 
> ok so it turns out i might not be able to see it 2 on opening weekend because of the hurricane. i hope everyone else affected stays safe!! <3
> 
> also, this is literally just a prediction. i'll read this after i see it (still don't know when that's going to be) and probably realize all the mistakes, but this is just through random shit i've picked up.

Richie could admit that he had a tendency to be a bit ill-tempered when it came to certain things. His future, as far as he could tell, wasn’t “so bright that he had to wear shades” or whatever the fuck that song was. Parents despised him, teachers loathed him, and kids detested him. He did, however, feel like he had one good thing going for him besides his impeccable sense of humor (_har-dee-har-har_, another joke)— he could play a pretty mean game of Street Fighter. 

He wasn’t by any means the greatest Street Fighter player to ever grace God’s green earth, but he wasn’t half-bad either. Earlier that summer, Eddie, after having lost to him for probably the 15th time in a row, had stormed off in a rage, declaring that he would never play Street Fighter with him ever again because he had gotten just too good at it.

Richie slipped another token into the Street Fighter machine. To prove a point to Stan, he’d tried to keep track of how many tokens he’d used on the game that summer, but he’d lost count after 203. The sound of the token rolling into the machine was like a marble across a tiled floor.

The game began and he faced off with, as he usually did, the Street Fighter character Retsu. He mashed down on the circular red buttons, _ PUNCH, KICK_. He moved the joystick up and down, _ JUMP, DUCK, _ and left and right, _ FORWARD, BACKWARD_, cursing under his breath.

He usually had one of his friends behind him, eagerly cheering him on as he went round after round beating up the Japanese warriors with fireballs and tornado kicks, but all of his friends either hated him, were too busy with _ bar mitzvah _ shit, or were locked up under house arrest, leaving him stuck here playing against the computer trying to top his last high score, the highest on the machine.

He hadn’t talked to Bill since the fight outside of Eddie’s house, and, if he were being honest with himself, he had absolutely no desire to. Almost a week had passed since Neibolt, and he’d be lying if he said that he’d expected Ben, Bev, and Mike to go completely cold turkey on him.

He’d spoken to Eddie on the phone late Saturday night, two days after Neibolt. Eddie said that his mom had gone absolutely “off the wall crazy” in a low whisper and that he was probably never going to see the light of day again. Richie had suggested that if Eddie set his house on fire, then maybe, _ just maybe,_ he’d be allowed outside. Eddie said that he’d burn in there in the time that it took to get his mom out and Richie laughed.

Begrudgingly, and after a rather pointless conversation about George Pérez’s new Wonder Woman comic, Richie told him about the fight, explained everything that had happened with Bill. Eddie chastised him the rest of the call. ‘Why would say that to him?’ Richie had imagined him on the other side of the phone, frowning disapprovingly and shaking his head. ‘You know how he gets when you talk about Georgie!’ Even through his anger, Eddie still remembered to keep his voice down in risk of waking his mother. ‘Be the bigger person and apologize!’

‘I’ll apologize… eventually,’ he’d said after Eddie had finally calmed down a little. 

He’d yet to apologize, and, with the way things were going, both him and Bill too stubborn to confront the other, they were stuck at a complete roadblock. He wondered if he should walk over to the payphone across the street and call Eddie, to hell with Mrs. K, and ask him if he’d talked to Bill recently. He had a feeling, though, that it would only lead to more bitching and nagging, so he suppressed the urge.

Having been too lost in his own head, Richie lost one round, then the other, and, with a sigh, took a step back and put another token into the machine. Just as he was about to select _ SINGLE-PLAYER _and play through another game against the stupid-ass computer, someone sidled up behind him and asked silkily, “Can I play?”

Richie jumped embarrassingly, whipping his head around. The voice, dripping with confidence, belonged to a boy around his age that he’d never seen before, tall and lanky with piercing blue eyes. Something about him, whether it be the way he dressed or talked or just _ looked,_ made Richie’s throat dry up and his heart pound. “Uh, yeah, sure,” he fumbled out. “I can’t promise you’ll win, though, I have the highest score on the machine.”

“Wait a second,” the boy said incredulously. “_You’re _ THM?!” It was an abbreviation for Trashmouth. He’d had trouble picking a name when he’d only been given three slots and, for whatever reason, THM stuck with him more than something inappropriate and funny would’ve.

Richie nodded, grinning a little. “The one and only.”

“You have, like, seven million points. How is that even _ possible_?”

The boy’s eyes, an endless ocean of blue, widened as he talked. Richie was lost in them for a moment. “I’ve played Street Fighter since the machine’s been here. It’s my pride and joy. I’ve only made it to the last character a few times, though, and I’m dying to get my score up into the ten millions. It’d look _ so _ badass. Also, I have this bet with James, the worker over there, that if I make it to the ten millions before summer ends he has to give me free tokens for the rest of the year.” He rambled quite a bit, but the boy didn’t look fazed. “I’m Richie, by the way. THM is short for Trashmouth. My friends call me that because…”

“Of your trashmouth,” the boy supplied with an off-hand shrug. “I get it. I’m Conner. I’m not from here, though, just visiting my cousin.” Right. He found a kid that genuinely liked Street Fighter, but, of course, lived out of town. Just his luck.

Richie nodded. “Yeah, I… I hadn’t noticed you before.” He cleared his throat, then went on, “Anyway, you can join if you want to. You got a token?”

Conner held it up with a cheeky grin. It flashed briefly in the fluorescent lights. After slipping it into the machine, he moved over to the blue controls and pressed _ MULTI-PLAYER_.

They played a few rounds together, nothing serious. Conner wasn’t too bad either, definitely better than Richie’s other friends at this ‘God-forsaken’ game (Eddie’s words). Unsurprisingly, though, Richie won after the first few rounds. After the _ GAME OVER _ jingle played, a sharp, tinny sound, he turned to Conner and asked, “‘Wanna play again? I’ll let us tie until we can have more power-ups.”

Apparently, that hadn’t been the right thing to say.

Conner was staring at something just to the right of Richie’s head, and, after a brief flash of recognition, turned his mood sour. As fast as a teenage mood swing, his easy-going grin turned into a wily sneer. His voice rose in volume by several notches, and where it was once quiet and warm, it was now loud and cutting. “Why would I wanna play with you, kid?! I’m not your boyfriend!”

Richie blinked, taken aback. “_What_?”

Another voice, all-too-familiar with its drawling edge, cut in, “HEY, FAGGOT!” At that, Richie whirled his head around so fast that he gave himself momentary whiplash.

Henry Bowers. He was standing so close that Richie could smell the cigarette on him (Marlboro, if he wasn’t mistaken). He hadn’t expected to see that ugly mug until school started back up again. Belch Huggins was standing beside him, his arms crossed over his chest. He’d cut off the sleeves of his flannel, showing off his rather large muscles. “What are you doing to my cousin?!”

Wait… cousin? _ Oh_.

Several people glanced up from their games to see what was happening, others too invested to avert their eyes. Richie took a step back (Henry was _ too close, too close_), not expecting to run into the Street Fighter machine. The plastic joystick dug into his spine. “What? I wasn’t—” He looked over to Conner, helplessly confused, to see that he was still sneering, his lips curled upward in a snarl.

“Can’t you see he doesn’t want it, you fucking fairy?!” Henry nearly snarled, taking another step forward. “Why don’t you go hit on your faggot friends instead? Where’s Flamer? Or that twink Girly Boy?”

Richie could do nothing but blink. He could usually think of comeback after comeback in front of Bowers, really get underneath his skin just enough to escape essentially unscathed (50% success rate, of course), but today, right now, he just… _ couldn’t_.

He’d been called a faggot before. Multiple times, actually. All by the same group of people— Bowers and his goons. Never before had it actually rendered him speechless, though. He floundered for something to say, _ anything_, but all that came out was “Uh…”

“Answer him, fag!” Conner shouted at him, spittle flying from his lips.

Richie didn’t know what to do. He tried to move away, to slip around them, but he couldn’t. He willed his feet to go, but they didn’t want to. He stood there, stunned, blinking from Conner to Henry and Belch, then back to Conner.

“Don’t have anything to say, Tozier? Cat got your tongue?” Henry was so close, in fact, that Richie could smell his breath, something like a mix of tuna sandwich and old cigarette. He could see every pimple on Henry’s face, most of them looking like they needed a good popping.

Then, finally, Richie found himself able to move again. He took off running, veering around Henry, Belch, and Conner and out of the arcade door. He heard thudding footsteps behind him, surely those of his bullies trying to chase after him, but he was running faster than he ever had before, flying down Center Street. They surely wouldn’t catch him now.

The wind bit at his eyes so fiercely that they started to get watery. Surely that was the only reason, right? The wind? He rubbed at his stinging eyes from underneath his specs, momentarily distorting his vision. Still, Belch, Henry, and Conner were too far behind him to be even moderately close enough to catch him.

“MACK ON SOMEONE ELSE’S COUSIN, YOU FOUR-EYED FAGGOT!” Henry called after him, its conclusiveness a telltale sign that the chase was over. Still, though, Richie ran, heart hammering madly in his chest.

He wasn’t exactly sure where he was going, only that it let him to Bassey Park. With a quick glance behind his shoulder, he saw that indeed the chase was over. They were nowhere to be seen. Air was filling his lungs painfully and his vision was starting to blur at the edges. Feeling defeated, he collapsed onto a park bench across from the City Center, rubbing at his eyes from underneath his specs.

After several moments to catch his breath, he realized belatedly that he’d started to cry. Hot tears slipped down his cheeks, and no matter how hard he tried to stop them, they just kept coming. He hadn’t seen anyone else in the park, so he embraced the solitude that came with escaping that stifling arcade. He had practically suffocated in there. He could still faintly smell the stretch of Bowers’ breath, it having burned itself into his nostrils. 

_ Bowers._

Richie had never in his life had this kind of reaction to Bowers picking on him like that. He’d been bullied for years for a multitude of reasons— his specs, his grades, his inability to keep his mouth shut, his nose, practically anything was something Bowers could pin against him. The word ‘faggot' was thrown around a couple of times before, mostly in the vicinity of his friends, but never alone.

He had felt a sort of openness when he’d first met Conner, but Bowers had fucked that up real quick. Conner had been _ so nice_, and Richie had actually thought, for a moment, that he’d started to make a friend that wasn’t Loser-related. All of his friendships stemmed off of them, so having someone to himself was almost… unfathomable. He didn’t feel that way anymore, though. He missed his friends _ so fucking much_, and for the first time since the fight at Neibolt, Richie realized how stupid he’d been.

Eddie had been right. Richie shouldn’t have brought up the whole ‘Georgie-thing’ and he knew it. It was uncalled for and _ completely_, _ utterly _ below the belt. He should’ve kept his mouth shut, but he knew that if he hadn’t taken one for the team, Bill would’ve dragged their sorry asses down into that well to pointlessly look for Georgie when they all knew he was dead. Of course, he was. He had been ‘missing’ for nine months at that point. There was no doubt about it.

Still, though, he regretted ever having stood up to Bill. His face still hurt from where he’d been punched. As if the memory sparked his pain back to light, he rubbed his jaw, working it from side to side.

What Bowers had said, whether Richie wanted to admit or not, had gotten to him.

_Cousins_. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that? Conner, though, was 10x prettier than Bowers, and that realization made him cry even harder.

He buried his head in his hands.

_ “...YOU FOUR-EYED FAGGOT!”  
_

Henry’s voice was ringing in his ears, reverberating through every inch of his brain. Richie hated him _ so much_, he hated him more than he had ever hated anyone in his entire life.

_ You hate him_, a voice in his head drawled. _ Because he’s telling the truth._


End file.
